Happy Birthday!!

Well, it is finally here. After two birthday parties, Katelynn is officially one. We had quite a boring unexciting day. Katelynn kept herself busy walking all around the house finding new fun things to carry all around the house. We let her have ice cream and hot fudge for dessert. It has been a very fast and fun year. Katelynn is such a joy. I love being home with her every day and watching her learn and grow. It is amazing how fast she's grown up.

SoCal here we come! Part IV

The last leg of our trip was when we went Palm Springs. It was warm and relaxing there. Greg and Dan played a bunch of golf. We went up on a Sunday and just relaxed. Nichole and the cousins came up on Tuesday after Ethan's preschool was done. Dave came out Wednesday night. There were two bedrooms and a living room. We had a lot of fun. The four guys went out and played a round of golf together on Thursday. Greg is the best to go golfing with if you are inexperienced. He is always patient with me and points out how to improve.

We are trying to feed Katelynn more adult food, more real food so we don't have to worry about baby food. Jen always cuts the food down, I find that difficult and just let her gnaw off a bite. Here I am feeding Katelynn watermelon.

I think she likes it, what do you think?

We always get pictures by the flamingos. One interesting fact about flamingos is that they are very smelly creatures.

Dan is not as smelly as a flamingo. Point for Dan.

Let me tell you how difficult it is to get a picture with all three cousins looking at the camera at the same time. They all are looking in different directions and if you call one, the other two aren't looking anymore. So these pictures are a rarity.

Annalise was jumping in a puddle in the grass and was doing it again briefly.



We played boccie ball. Fun game. Even more fun because I was having such a great day at it. I beat everyone there. Oh, Jen did beat me on the rematch she challenged me to.


My mom came out on Friday and we went swimming. We swam at least once a day.



The golf courses in Palm Springs are beautiful. I guess they are really the only ones I have been around, except for two, so there may very easily be others that are better. That would be difficult though.


Katelynn may have tricked you if you thought she was smiling in any way. No she is crying for her mom. A common occurrence now.

Here, Jen was going to take a picture of Dan but had it on video mode instead. Dan is a pretty cool guy, as evidenced by the video here.


On Saturday, we went to PF Changs. One of my favorite places to eat.

To be Brigham-esque I show my plates that I ate there. We had the lettuce wraps, which are a must at PF Changs.

I had a bit of the lemon-pepper shrimp, the Kung Pow chicken, a good portion of the honey crisp chicken, and not enough Mongolian Beef.

Dan is a good eater and cleaned his plate.

There were misters above us and caught Katelynn's attention. Katelynn doesn't look up often but I always thinks she look cute when she does.

Cute picture of Mommy and Baby.

At the Rivers, where we were eating, there is free entertainment every Saturday evening. They were entertaining alright. We sat and listened to them until they took a break.

I thought this was a sweet looking pig. With a last name of Wilbur, pigs are always an interest and I just had to get a picture with my pig friend.

Dan found the Babewagon and thought that matched up with him.

When we came back we went to Jen's Grandparents to visit before we left SoCal. I like this picture of four generations. I wasn't thinking then, but I should have had them all pose.

Cute Katelynn

At Palm Springs, Katelynn began to walk a lot more. She walked everywhere and has not yet stopped. She is almost always carrying something as she walks, usually a blanket or some article of clothing.

Katelynn with Great Grandpa Goldthorpe

Katelynn was getting very tired and grumpy and would sit in Great Grandma's lap. So Jen held her.

I shaved for the last time on our trip on Wednesday night. I went to work on Tuesday and so I was forced to shave. This is immediately before I did so. This is about 5 1/2 days growth. You really can't see the hair as well in this picture.

So I took this picture. Jen HATES this picture, but I think it more clearly illustrates how much hair I had.


Being down in Southern California was so much fun we were a little sad to leave. Especially with the two crazy accidents south of Las Vegas and added a good hour to our drive home.

Something new with Katelynn is that she started to sign "more" the day after we came home. I still wonder if she has any idea what it means, or just knows it gets her more food.

SoCal here we come! Part III

We decided to have a party for Katelynn's birthday while we were around both of our families. It was a couple weeks early, so she is going to get two parties. We had to wait a little while for family to gather and the Hess Family was able to come and visit with us a little before the party started. It was fun especially with kids that are close in age. Gretel is 6 weeks older than Katelynn so it was fun to compare where they both were developmentally. It was interesting to see how one will develop quicker in one area and one in another. You can see their personalities and how different they are.

Katie and Clayton needed to leave before the festivities began but it was great to see them. I think Katie and Jen had a good time bond with mother-talk.

Then came the presents. Katelynn was a little timid opening the presents.

Her cousins were more then willing to help her out.


She got a lot of toys and clothes. She really liked the whole presents thing, toys and clothes.



After presents, cake. We made cupcakes for everyone. This was the first time she would eat cake, or any kind of junk food, so we were very interested to she how she reacted.

At first, she didn't really know what to do with it. She bat it around and played with the frosting.

She got a taste of the frosting and cake and went crazy. She grabbed the whole thing and dug in.


Cake got everywhere as expected.

My dad took my camera while I was video taping it. He seriously took at least 30-40 pictures of the cupcake time.

SoCal here we come! Part II

I decided to split the California adventure into four different parts. It just so happens that the first two parts are the first two days. The second day was Josh and Hayley's open house for their wedding. It was at my parents house and they have been preparing for a long time. Last summer they renovated the entire landscaping. They contracted all the concrete and such and my dad has spent many a Saturday (and the last several Friday's that he took off work so it would be ready in time) working on everything from the front door, flowers, lighting, BBQ, etc. I thought it was a great open house. I am stealing the pictures in this post from my parents blog.

The theme was Hawaii, as was the wedding. That center piece there was very heavy. Under it is my dad's new BBQ, and my dad built a simple wood table to hold the piece so the BBQ wouldn't be damaged. There was so much food, and my mom was giving it away left and right toward the end.


Josh and Hayley had a reception line, which was nice.

There were tiki lamps lining the driveway. There were a lot of people there. It was good.



It was really good to see a lot of old friends. By old I don't mean age although some are getting some serious gray hairs, or losing them altogether.

As the darkness of night came, the tiki lamps really began to take effect. They were a really nice effect.

If you want to hear more about the open house go to my dad's post on it.